Anthropology of Myth Magic and Religion Exam Review
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| holistic | looking at human societies as the sum of the whole
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| holism | the method of studying human societies as the sum of the whole
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| emic | the insider point of view
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| etic | the outsider point of view
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| ethnocentrism | the tendency to use our own society as a basis for interpreting and judging another society
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| cultural relativism | describing and understanding people’s customs and ideas but not judging them
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| ethnography | the descriptive study of human societies
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| participant observation | the anthropologist lives within the community and participates to a degree in the lives of the people under study, while at the same time making objective observations
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| religion | a set of cultural beliefs and practices that usually include some or all of a basic set of characteristics
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| supernatural | a term that refers to things that are “above the natural”
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| sacred | a term that denotes an attitude wherein the subject is entitled to reverence and respect
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| symbols | shared understandings about the meanings of certain words, attributes, or objects. At the most basic definition is it something that stands for something else.
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| ideology | a shared set of beliefs
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| anthropomorphic | beings, animals or objects imbued with human characteristics
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| cargo cults | trade goods cults developed in New Guinea in response to colonialism
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| diffusionism | attempting to trace the origins of something (in this case religion) to a common, single source
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| evolutionary approach | the belief that religion developed by naturally moving from a simple to a complex form
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| animism | a belief in spirit beings; souls in every living thing
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| polytheism | belief in many gods
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| monotheism | belief in a single god
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| animatism | a belief in an ancient supernatural force which lives in everything
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| Marxist approach | religion is viewed as a false consciousness created by those in power to exploit workers
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| cognitive approach | religion is a product of the way the human brain scientifically works
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| cognition | the processes of the human brain that include things like perception, learning, problem solving etc.
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| functional approach | analyzing religion via asking the questions what does religion do? What role does religion play in society?
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| The Collective Conscious | a system of beliefs that act to contain natural selfishness of an individuals and to promote social cooperation, developed by Durkheim
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| interpretive approach | interpreting religion via webs of significance or a system of symbols which are culturally specific
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| psychosocial approach | examining religion via analyzing the relationship between culture and personality and between the society and the individual
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| mana | objects have a supernatural power embedded in them, originated in Melanesia and is an example of animatism
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| worldview | the way in which societies perceive and interpret their reality
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| cosmology | the order/structure of reality as perceived by a society
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| mazeways | mental maps that join personalities with culture ie how people embrace their wolrdviews
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| folktales | stories regarded as fiction and not considered to be sacred which can include supernatural elements but are largely secular
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| legends | stories based on real people or events which are considered to be factual
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| myths | stories regarded as fact or taken on faith which are often a source of moral guidelines and include supernatural elements
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| narratives | various written or told story types such as myths, legends, folktales, fairy tales and epics
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| monomyth | a single myth to explain or be the source of all other myths which some scholars search for
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| structural analysis | this approach to analyzing myths focuses on myths as made of structural parts, often contrasting binaries
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| The collective unconsciousness | A shared mental creation of humans which Jung thought was manifested in dreams and myths
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| archetypes | the main characters of Jung's collective unconsciousness and of myths such as The Hero
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| social charter | the reinforcement of a culture's worldview of the organization of human relationships
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| displacement | the ability of humans to use symbols to refer to things and activities that are remote to the user
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| arbitrary | divorced from meaning (in the case of symbols)
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| color symbolism | cultures perceive colors differently and associate those colors with different concepts
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| totemism | utilizing a totem to form a special relationship between a group/individual and its totem
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| totem | a symbol which works as a representation of a social unit
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| mandala | a geometric configuration of symbols. In some religions, it is a map of the religion's cosmology.
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| petroglyphs | symbols inscribed in stone
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| geoglyphs | symbols carved in or out of the ground, land art
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| relics | esteemed parts of religiously powerful humans or objects they are associated with
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| ritual | a recurring sequence of events which when religious, involves the manipulation of religious symbols
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| ritualization | the formation of rituals, ie a set of behaviors or patterns of behavior that 'mean something' to other members of the group
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| prescriptive rituals | rituals that are required to be performed
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| situational (crisis) rituals | rituals performed to meet a specific need of a person or community
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| periodic/calendrical rituals | rituals performed on a regular basis as part of a religious calendar
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| occasional rituals | rituals performed when a particular need arises
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| ideological rituals | rituals that maintain the normal functioning of the community, often showing codes of conduct, good from evil and the community's worldview
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| technical/technological rituals | rituals which utilize a 'technique' to achieve a natural or supernatural result
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| social rites of intensification | a type of ideological and technical ritual which are prescribed and periodic. Often involves a sacred text, commentary on issues and prayers.
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| tabu | Objects or people which are off limits in society, often have a sacred aspect which means normal people cannot interact with them.
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| dramatic ritual/social drama | Turner calls this type of ritual a universal ritual in which their is a breach in social life which society must address which either brings them closer together or breaks them apart
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| offerings | reciprocal gifts or bribes or economic exchange meant to obtain something from the supernatural
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| sacrifice | an offering in which blood is shed AND/OR a way of making an object sacred
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| altered states | entering a different state of mind via triggers such as repetitive stimuli or mind-altering substances
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| trance | a state in which part of a person's brain is selectively shut down and during which spiritual beings can communicate with them
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| possession | when a person in a trance state is possessed by a supernatural entity
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| pilgrimage | a mental or physical journey to achieve a sacred goal which changes the participants, or a series of rituals that are associated with sacred places or things
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| communitas | a concept created by Turner to explain the sense of equality and community a group of individuals develop during certain rituals
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| rites of passage | rituals where a person is separated from their former status, transitions into a new status and is incorporated into a new social relationship. An example is marriage.
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| coming of age rituals | rituals which mark the transition from childhood to adulthood, a type of rite of passage
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| liminality | the state of ambiguous marginality during which the metamorphosis takes place ie the transition stage of the rite of passage
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| magic | rituals by which a person can compel the supernatural to behave in a certain way
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| sympathetic magic | magic which depends on the agreement between aspects of two things such as the croaking of frogs leading to rain
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| law of similarity | magic based on the belief that things which are alike in either behavior or physically are the same
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| homeopathic magic | often called alternative medicine or homeopathic medicine in the modern day this type of magic uses the law of similarity
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| image magic | a type of homeopathic magic, this is the practice of making an image to represent a living person or animal which can then be manipulated through doing things to the image
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| Doctrine of Signatures | the belief that there are supernatural signs in the shape and structure of plants which tells you how it should be used for healing
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| contagious magic | magic which is based on the idea that things which were once in contact continue to be in contact even after that connection is severed. Things like good and bad luck can be transferred to objects such as a rabbit's foot for good luck.
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| apotropaic magic | protective magic which is meant to protect against harmful supernatural influences
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| divination | supernatural ways of learning about the unknown based on observing or manipulating the connection between things
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| fortuitous divination | divination which happens without any conscious effort on the part of the individual such as by observing natural phenomenon
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| deliberate divination | divination which happens with the effort of an individual(s) often through a technique such as animal sacrifice
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| inspirational divination | a form of divination which involves some type of spiritual experience such as a direct contact with the supernatural
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| non-inspirational divination | a form of divination which involves utilizing more magic such as reading natural events or manipulating devices
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| scapulamancy | a form of non-inspirational divination (and a technological ritual) in which a piece of animal skeleton is dried and fired and the cracks are 'read' to determine the answer to a question
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| religious specialists | people who have certain religious 'jobs' to do in our society which they are experts in
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| shaman/shamaness | a religious specialist whose role is to interact with the spiritual world on behalf of others
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| priests/priestesses | full-time religious specialists associated with formalized religious institutions that may be linked with kinship groups, communities or larger political units who grant authority to the priests/priestesses
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| lama/gelongma | Tibetan Buddhist monks/nuns
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| ascetics/mendicants | religious specialists who reject their family and other social obligations in favor of the religious institutions. Can sometimes be wanderers or hermits.
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| herbalists | a type of healer that is a specialist in the use of plants and other materials as cures
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| diviners | someone who practices divination via techniques of manipulating the supernatural or via observation or communication with the supernatural
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| prophet | a religious specialist who is a mouthpiece of the gods with direct communication with the spirits/gods being passed on to humans
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| marriage | a rite of passage transitioning from single to married
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| dowry | a payment made to the groom's family by the bride's family
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| bride price/bride wealth | a payment made from the groom’s family to the bride’s family
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| ghost/spirit marriage | a marriage between a deceased individual and either another ghost or a living person
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| internment/inhumation | burying a dead body in the earth
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| cremation | reducing the body to ashes and fragmentary bones. Those ashes can then be scattered, buried or incorporated.
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| sky/celestial burial | a type of burial where the body is left in a high place and exposed to the elements and scavengers
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| anthropogenic | deliberate actions done by humans
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| endocannibalism | eating one's own community, usually in a mortuary context
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| second/secondary burial | the bones and/or body are removed from the grave and reburied
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| ancestor worship/ancestors | this is the idea that ancestors must be worshiped and no forgotten after death
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| souls | the non-corporeal, spiritual component of an individual which manifests after death
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| transmigration | the soul is reborn after death into a new body
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| purgatory | in Catholicism, it's where souls that are in a state of grace but in need of purification go
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| afterlife | the land of the dead
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| psychopomps | supernatural beings which guide the dead to or through the afterlife
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| zombies | a dead body that has been raised by a vodou priest without a soul or spirit
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| ghosts | A (usually) negative force or soul
that tends to remain in the vicinity
of the community after death
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| vampires | thought to be the dead rising up sometimes to spread disease or harm, and possibly to drink blood
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| theodicy | a Christian term for an argument explaining evil and why people must suffer
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| maleficium | black magic in the 6th-7th cent Europe which centered around love potions and image magic, but no by joining with the devil
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| werewolves | happening in parallel to the witchcraft crazes in Europe, werewolves turned into wolves through use of a wolf strap and ate food or attacked travelers
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| wicca | a generic term for a large group within the religious movement of Neopaganism
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| pantheism | the idea that all reality, nature etc. is part of a supreme entity; the divine in everyone
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| two-spirits | a group within many Native American peoples who define their gender via their occupation and behavior rather than sexual choices or biology
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| the Hijra | an ancient gender present in India who use their power to confer fertility on newlyweds and newborns
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| the Mahu | Native Hawaiian peoples with spiritual and social roles in Hawaiian culture who are dual male/female.
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| Bissu | one of the five genders of the Bugis people of Indonesia which is roughly equivalent to androgynous or intersex and involves performing religious rituals
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| acculturation | when a dominant culture influences a subordinate culture and causes it to change while the dominant culture remains the same
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| assimilation | when the dominant culture changes the subordinate society so much it ceases to have its own distinct identity
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| syncretism | the fusing of traits from the two cultures to form something new
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| revitalization movements | a religious or secular movement which is reacting to the acculturation and assimilation of their group to a ‘dominant’ culture out of fear of their own culture disappearing
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| nativist movements | a type of revitalization movement which happens when the cultural gap between the dominant and subordinate cultures is vast
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| revivalistic movements | a revitalization movement which attempts to ‘revive’ what is seen as a past ‘golden age’ in which ancient customs are seen as symbols of the nobility and legitimacy of the repressed culture
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| millenarian movements | a type of revitalization movement which is based on a vision of change through an apocalyptic transformation
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| messianic movements | a movement where they believe a divine savior in human form will bring about solutions to society’s problems
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| The Ghost Dance | a syncretic and nativist movement which spread amongst the Lakota in which there would be an apocalypse where the dead Laktoa would return to earth via the Ghost Dance. It was destroyed by the US government via the massacre at Wounded Knee.
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| disease | a specific pathological process in the body, characterized by a known set of symptoms
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| illness | a person’s subjective experience of a disease or condition, often influenced by cultural beliefs and norms
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